Rudolf Steiner Archive & e.Lib Document

From the Contents of Esoteric Classes

On-line since: 15th February, 2011

EL,
Kassel, 5-9-'14

Verse for
Saturday. My dear sisters and brothers! In
ordinary day consciousness we know nothing about what's behind
what we sense, imagine, think, feel and will. In our dream life we're
in this living weaving that's the background of our day
consciousness. One part of this world of which we can otherwise
perceive nothing extends into our chaotic dream pictures. If we could
awaken out of our dreams half way we would experience a flowing wave
around us in which our soul lives from the beginning of sleep. And
then if we woke up completely we would bring a memory of living,
weaving dream experiences into our day consciousness. However it's
physically impossible to wake up half way; we must go into sense
consciousness completely right away. That's why we know nothing
about that other world. But we're really always dreaming. This
living, weaving dream world is always around us and we're in it
— we just don't know it. The strange thing about dreams is that
it's easy to forget them, much easier than anything we experience
with day consciousness. Most people only think about what they
experience with their day consciousness, and their dreams
reflect this. It's only when one fills one's soul with ideas and
feelings that go beyond daily life that one can dream about something
that has its origin in the spiritual world. A man who's immersed in
his everyday consciousness knows nothing about this spirituality
that's behind all of his thinking, feeling and willing. We can become
aware of this spirituality from another side. A spiritual stream
pours into the physical body at birth or conception as it's
getting built up and gradually pulses through the whole organism. The
life of the new soul core, the germ for the next life, that which
survives death becomes created in the course of a life. But we know
nothing of the spirit from the previous life that streams into
physical existence or about the soul core that's the seed for the
next life. So what do we know?

Our life
consists of two parts, one from birth to our earliest memory
and another from this moment until death. If one is in one's 31st
year and remembers back to that point, one then arrives at the
boundary of the spirituality that's streaming in there. One perceives
this boundary; one becomes aware of this boundary by bumping into it.
Such collisions remain in our memory during our life and form
our memories. Our memories collect in there. And that's our
consciousness in physical life.

Just as the
seed of the new plant develops in a plant, so we work at the forces that
shape our new life for the future. Happy are they who have stored up
nice memories. The spirituality from the past life that streams and
goes through the new body from birth on gradually dissipates during life.

As was
often said, a great memory tableau appears after death. On leaving
the physical body one first arrives at this boundary where all the
memories are stored up; we then see them as a great tableau before
us. The memory of some experience can be forgotten all life long
until it's suddenly drawn up into consciousness again. It was
always there. It's as if one put salt in water and it falls to the
bottom. This can be brought up again by stirring. Likewise our
memories are a sediment that we can bring up again. If we pour
seltzer into a glass we see little bubbles rising. The water, the
actually real thing we don't see but only where there is nothing, the
carbon dioxide bubbles. We see that, that seems to be reality
to us. Likewise we only become aware of the boundary between the new
soul core and the old spirituality; we become aware of
something where they bump into each other. And this makes up our day
consciousness. Consciousness arises through the contact between
past and future. We can also make ourselves aware of this
spirituality from a third side. It's not only men who think and their
memories and thoughts remain as a sediment, but spiritual
beings have thought and are still thinking. What high
hierarchies thought in times long past, the memories that
remained behind of these thoughts are what we perceive around us here
as mountains, clouds, streams or in short nature. The physical sun is
the remaining memory of the sun leader, of Christ, of the earth
spirit who later went into the earth at the event of Golgotha.
And the memories of what high beings on Moon thought are plants,
animals and men's physical bodies. Spiritual beings there
thought errors — which was appropriate there — but then
didn't realize them. When we men think good and noble things they
continue to exist; we see them in the distance, in the future
as imperishable existential values. The errors, lies and dissolute
things we think also survive and we see them standing before us in
the distance as a waste product that serves as food for the seeds
that emerge from well thought things — just as we feed
ourselves from the erroneous thoughts of Moon spirits. The
waste product in itself is unproductive, but it serves as food
for the seeds developing out of good things, just as the mineral
kingdom provides soil for plants and just as one thing always
feeds on other things. Good feeds on evil like a sprouting seed that
consumes corrupt things and perpetuates itself. But we should only
think bad and evil things and mustn't let them be realized as deeds,
for then they are always luciferic and ahrimanic. Lucifer is about at
the stage where the Elohim were on old Moon and he still wants to
carry out erroneous thinking in the way that those beings did back
then while it was appropriate but is now wrong. But he can only let
errors be thought in men. That's why there are errors and deceptions
here, and we should become ever more aware of this.

We become
aware of something where the “memories” of those high
hierarchies are. Through the fact that we bump into a wall that's the
“memory” of Gods with our hand that's also a memory, the
boundaries of these realities bump into each other, and we
thereby become aware of this object. We feel reality, matter in
day consciousness where this real thing ceases, and we feel the other
thing as nothing. We feel neither our hand nor the wall, but only the
boundary in between. A table isn't a reality — it's a hole in
the spiritual world that's filled with wood. It's only in our
ordinary consciousness that we look upon the table as a
reality. If we could make ourselves strong enough through
meditation and dampen this day consciousness so that we became
completely aware of the nothingness of the surrounding world,
then we with our souls would always experience the fact that we're in
the spiritual world. Three meditation verses were given to us
for this strengthening of our soul. It's a matter of meditating
them correctly, of not simply saying the words but of hearing the
expression that has to be placed into them if they are to work on our
soul in the right way.
(The verse in the lesson from March 5th 1914 in Stuttgart, is included
here for reference.)

To
things I turn myself
I turn myself with ray senses; —
Sense existence, you deceive me! —
What flees existence as nothing:
For you it's existence and reality;
May what must seem like nothing to you
Be disclosed to my inner life. —

(I must
attain this: it's the taking of a position towards the new, outer world.)

Spirit
light warm me
Let me feel myself volitionally in you.
Well thought, truly known things
How does shining I experience you
May weaving of error, badly thought things
Show itself to shining soul
That I may be weaving in myself.

(That's a
questioning and experiencing in the new existence within.)

Shining
I and luminous soul (- oneself -)
Floats over real developing being
What was thought, what was known
Now becomes dense spirit existence
And what seems like existence to the senses
Lives in the ocean of divine reality
Like aery existential bubbles.

(In
anticipation of truth. It's a guessing, a feeling of the new self.)

When
elaborated each of these strophes contains the same thing that's
successively compressed in our rosicrucian verse in the ten words:
Ex
Deo nascimur,
In Christo morimur,
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus

The first two
lines in verse one are descriptive, then — resistance. Then
descriptive again, and at the end is a request. Beginners can
meditate this verse in the evening after the retrospect; those who
already have an exercise can do it in their spare time. Special
attention should be given to the question in the fourth line of the
second verse. There's an entreaty at the end. Beginners should do it
in the morning; others can do it at any musing time. A third verse is
given us as a test to ask oneself once in a while whether one already
feels the spiritual world as a reality.

Everything
that's inspired out of the spiritual world is revealed in numbers. The
being who let these 7-lined verses flow in thereby helped people to
distinguish between real and unreal things. By letting these verses
pass through our soul repeatedly we give this being an opportunity
to speak to our soul; thereby we get the right effect of the verses.

These
verses are expressed briefly in EDN, ICM, PSSR and also in: In the
spirit lay the germ of my body ...